22/07/2019

DFAT's Climate Change Strategy Stuck On Hold

AFR - Andrew Tillett

A climate change strategy for Australia's foreign aid program has languished in Foreign Minister Marise Payne's office for six months, undermining efforts to bolster ties with Pacific nations who regard global warming as an existential threat.
Foreign aid groups have lashed the delay, which coincides with warnings from military chiefs that China could take advantage of climate change to occupy abandoned islands in the Pacific.
A child wades through sludge and water on the Island Republic of Kiribati, which often experiences inundation on high tides and is one of a number of low-lying nations exposed to the worst effects of rising waters due to climate change. James Alcock
The strategy is intended to provide a framework for integrating investment on climate change action with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade's overseas development assistance program.
The strategy had its genesis in July 2016, when DFAT elevated climate change as a foreign aid priority, and then foreign minister Julie Bishop gave the green light to preparing the strategy.
DFAT officials said last year the strategy would be made public in late 2018 but Senator Payne told Senate estimates in February she had received a draft version of the strategy that month but was non-committal about when it would be released.
Confirmation of the delay comes as Senator Payne travels to the Cook Islands for bilateral meetings and Prime Minister Scott Morrison prepares to meet New Zealand counterpart Jacinda Ardern in Melbourne on Friday, where cooperation in the Pacific will feature heavily in talks.
Mr Morrison has made the so-called "Pacific step up" a signature issue of his prime ministership as he seeks to deepen diplomatic and defence ties with Pacific nations, amid a strategic competition with China for regional influence.
Pacific nations have declared climate change the single biggest threat to the region and have criticised the Australian government for not doing enough to respond to the challenge.
The Australian Financial Review revealed earlier this week that Defence Force chief Angus Campbell used a private speech to warn fresh regional tensions could erupt if unnamed states occupied islands that had been abandoned because of rising sea levels.
The Australian Council for International Development, the peak body for aid and development non-government organisations, urged Senator Payne to release the climate strategy, adding it should be the basis of further reform of the aid program.
"As the Boe declaration states – and to which Australia is a signatory – climate change remains the single greatest threat to the livelihoods, security and wellbeing of the peoples of the Pacific. Yet, we are yet to see action from the Australian government which equates to this recognition," head of government relations Tim Watkin said.
"If we want to be a good neighbour and preferred partner, we must listen, respect and respond to the leaders of the Blue Pacific who consistently identify climate change as their key priority. It should be front and centre of the Pacific ‘step up’.
"As a matter of urgency, the Australian government must recognise the threat of climate change at the highest level of the development program. We think the government should refresh the 2014 aid policy and performance framework to reflect the threat of climate change and the Boe declaration. This would elevate and help mainstream climate change adaptation and resilience in the aid program."
DFAT said it was already integrating climate change action across aid programs. The government was on track to meet its promise of providing $1 billion over five years to 2020 to support countries in the region build resilence and lower emissions, including $300 million for the Pacific, it said in a statement.
"The climate change action strategy for the aid program is being updated to better reflect Australia’s international climate change engagement prior to the Paris Agreement coming into effect in 2020," the statement said.
"Australia recognises Pacific island countries are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change and disasters, and is already working closely with the Pacific on climate change and development issues, as well as interrelated environmental concerns like marine litter."

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A Deadly Heat Wave After The Hottest June On Record: How The Climate Crisis Is Creating 'A New Normal'

TIME - Jasmine Aguilera


A picture taken on June 24, 2019 shows a thermometer reaching almost 37 degrees Celsius in the French northern city of Godewaersvelde, near Lille. - Up to 40 degrees celsius during the day, 25 at night: France will know this week a heat wave exceptional in its precocity and intensity, warns on June 21, 2019 Meteo-France, saying that the heat waves are multiplying with the global warming. PHILIPPE HUGUEN—AFP/Getty Images
As millions of people prepare for sweltering heatwaves in the U.S. Midwest and East Coast, scientists say July will likely be the hottest July on record, following the hottest June on record. These types of heatwaves are expected to become more frequent throughout the world as global warming continues, say scientists.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reports the average global temperature for June was 1.71 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average of 59.9 degrees. NOAA also reported record-breaking decreases in sea ice coverage in the Arctic and Antarctica.
“Our climate is warming,” Ahira Sánchez-Lugo, a climatologist at NOAA, tells TIME. “We have a new normal, we are in a new warmer climate. Just in the 21st century, we’ve set a new global world temperature record five times.”
Robert Rohde, lead scientist at Berkeley Earth, tells TIME that July is also likely to be the hottest July on record, as global temperatures continue to trend towards increasing heat.
Regionally, hot June temperatures broke records in Europe, Africa and South America, and it was the hottest first half of the year for Alaska, Madagascar, New Zealand, Mexico, western Canada and eastern Asia.
Overall between January through June, the temperature averaged out to 1.71 degrees above the 20th century average of 55.3, tying with 2017 as the hottest year so far.
Rohde says this trend can be attributed to human emissions of greenhouse gases. “This trend will continue until humans find a way to change their behavior and stop modifying the atmosphere,” Rohde says.
He points out that while the trend continues upward, the world may not see consistently warmer temperatures. “It doesn’t happen continuously,” he says. “There are fluctuations, we don’t have a new hottest year every year or a new hottest month every month, but as we move forward we expect to set many records over time.”


 Why does record-breaking heat matter?
Sánchez-Lugo says as the world gets warmer, populations can expect more frequent heatwaves, droughts and extreme weather.
“Our extremes will change,” she says. “Drought is expected to become more intense and more frequent, heatwaves too, and all of this has consequences. Drought can impact the quality of water, the quantity of water, crops, food might get more expensive if there’s a drought.”
As temperatures continue to increase globally due to greenhouse gas emissions, the world will begin to see fewer cool days, according to Rohde.
“These conditions will start to put stress on social, economic and technical systems designed for the historical climate,” he adds. For example, agricultural systems that depend on a certain amount of rainfall that gradually starts to decrease while temperatures gradually increase.
Sánchez-Lugo says we have already seen examples of climate change effecting parts of the U.S., pointing to above average rainfall in the U.S. Midwest in June that prevented the planting and growing of crops.
“This year there were pastures that were not even planted with corn because it was so wet,” she says.
In the longterm, climate change threatens ice melting in the Arctic and Antarctic, increasing sea levels, which is already occurring. In Antarctica, sea ice coverage was 8.5% below the 1981-2010 average, the difference of 62,000 square miles, the smallest Antarctic record for June. And in the Arctic, sea ice coverage was 10.5% below average, the second-smallest on record for June.

Where have people been impacted by severe heat?
In Europe, Austria, Germany and Hungary had the warmest June on record, but heat also increased in Switzerland and France, which saw its hottest day in history on June 28 — 113 degrees Fahrenheit.
Heatwaves in Europe can be especially dangerous for elderly people in regions that are not used to high temperatures, says Piers Forster, professor of climate physics at the Priestley International Centre for Climate at the University of Leeds.
“Particularly in Europe, when heatwaves occur it can be especially damaging to harvests,” he adds. “Crops can be heavily effected, and of course you create a lot more susceptibility to wildfires, that can burn down homes and that also creates worse air pollution as well.”
The entire continents of South America and Africa and parts of Alaska saw saw the warmest June on record. In Alaska, infrastructure damage has been caused by permafrost melting due to temperature rising.
Now much of the U.S. prepares for a weekend heatwave expected to reach 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Extreme heat is the most fatal weather hazard in the U.S., according to the National Weather Service, even more deadly than hurricanes and floods.

What can be done to change the rising temperature trend?
Sánchez-Lugo, Rodhe and Forster agree the world needs to halt the the emission of greenhouse gasses in order to end the global rise in temperature.
Forster says temperatures are expected to increase globally even if greenhouse gases are reduced. “So to prevent them from going up, we have to reduce our emission of greenhouse gases all the way to zero.”
179 countries have signed onto the Paris Climate Agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions globally with the goal of keeping the global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius, or 35.6 degrees Fahrenheit, above preindustrial levels. But the U.S. withdrew from the agreement in 2017.
Still, Forster is optimistic. “Countries around the world are taking it really seriously,” he says. “The thing is you have to get every country in the world to do it and you have to get every part of the economy interested. So that’s where the challenge is but I would say that humanity always rises to these challenges, so I’m personally quite optimistic.”

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Assessing The Global Climate In June 2019

NASA

Warmest June on record for the globe, record-low Antarctic sea ice extent 

Courtesy of Pixabay.com
The global land and ocean surface temperature departure from average for June 2019 was the highest for the month of June in the 140-year NOAA global temperature dataset record, which dates back to 1880. The year-to-date temperature for 2019 was the second warmest January–June on record.

An annotated map of the world showing notable climate events that occurred around the world in June 2019.
This monthly summary, developed by scientists at NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, is part of the suite of climate services NOAA provides to government, business, academia and the public to support informed decision-making.

June 2019 Temperature

LARGE IMAGE
The June temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 1.71°F above the 20th century average of 59.9°F and was the highest for June in the 1880–2019 record. June 2019 bested the previous record set in 2016 by 0.04°F. 
  • Nine of the 10 warmest Junes have occurred since 2010. June 1998 is the only value from the previous century among the 10 warmest Junes on record, and it is currently ranked as the eighth warmest June on record.
  • June 2019 also marks the 43rd consecutive June and the 414th consecutive month with temperatures, at least nominally, above the 20th century average.
  • Record warm temperatures during June 2019 were present across parts of central and eastern Europe, northern Russia, Asia, Africa, South America, the north Indian Ocean, and across parts of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. No land or ocean areas had record cold June temperatures.
The June globally averaged land surface temperature was 2.41°F above the 20th century average of 55.9°F. This value was also the highest June land temperature in the 140-year record, surpassing the previous record of +2.34°F set in 2015.
  • The most notable warm temperature departures from average were present across central and eastern Europe, north-central Russia, northeastern Canada and southern parts of South America, where temperatures were 3.6°F above the 1981–2010 average or higher. The most notable cooler-than-average temperatures were limited to parts of western Asia and Antarctica, where temperatures were at least 1.8°F below the 1981–2010 average or cooler. 
  • Regionally, South America, Europe, Africa, the Hawaiian region and the Gulf of Mexico had their warmest June in the 110-year record. Asia and the Caribbean region had their eighth and ninth highest June temperature since continental records began in 1910, respectively. Meanwhile, North America and Oceania had their coolest June since 2009 and 2012, respectively.
The June globally averaged sea surface temperature was 1.46°F above the 20th century monthly average of 61.5°F — tying with 2016 as the highest global ocean temperature for June on record. June 2019 also tied with August 2015, April 2016 and June 2016 as the 10th highest monthly global ocean temperature departure from average among all months (1,674 months) on record. The 10 highest global ocean monthly temperature departures from average have all occurred since September 2015.

Sea Ice and Snow Cover

LARGE IMAGE
June 2019 marked the 20th consecutive June with Arctic sea ice extent below average. This was the second smallest Arctic sea ice extent for June in the 41-year record at 475,000 square miles (10.5%) below the 1981–2010 average and 46,300 square miles above the record low set in June 2016, according to an analysis by the National Snow and Ice Data Center using data from NOAA and NASA. 
June 2019 marks the fourth consecutive June that the Antarctic sea ice extent was below average at 425,000 square miles (8.5%) below the 1981–2010 average. This was the smallest June extent in the 41-year record, surpassing the previous record set in 2002 by 62,000 square miles.

Year-to-date (January–June 2019)

LARGE IMAGE
The year-to-date temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 1.71°F above the 20th century average of 56.3°F — tying with 2017 as the second highest for January–June in the 140-year record. Only January–June 2016 (+2.00°F) was warmer. 
  • The most notable warm temperature departures from average were present across parts of the Northern Hemisphere, specifically Alaska, western Canada and central Russia, where temperature departures from average were +5.4°F or higher. Meanwhile, the most notable cool temperature departures from average were present across much of the contiguous U.S. and southern Canada, where temperatures were at least 1.8°F below average or cooler.
  • Record-warm January–June temperatures were present across central South America, the southern half of Africa, New Zealand and its surrounding ocean, as well as parts of Alaska, western Canada, Mexico, the Bering Sea, the Atlantic Ocean, Madagascar and surrounding Indian Ocean, and across parts of eastern Asia. No land or ocean areas had record-cold temperatures during January–June 2019.
  • Regionally, five of six continents had a January–June temperature that ranked among the four highest such periods on record, with South America having its warmest year-to-date on record and Oceania having a near-record January-June temperature.
The year-to-date globally averaged land surface temperature was 2.68°F above the 20th century average of 45.0°F. This value was the third highest for January–June on record, behind 2016 (+3.35°F) and 2017 (+2.79°F).
The year-to-date globally averaged sea surface temperature was the second highest for January–June in the 1880–2019 record at 1.33°F above the 20th century average of 60.9°F. June 2016 (+1.51°F) was warmer.

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